An INS typically includes accelerometers and gyroscopes for rotation and acceleration detection. The accuracy of an INS is improved with inclusion of additional sensors such as magnetometers and pressure sensors. MEMs integrated INS's presently combine and align these individually packaged sensors within an outer package housing to form a complete INS. An INS comprised of a clock, gyroscope, accelerometer, pressure sensor and magnetometer; typically requires different environments for the individual sensors, leading to increased size, complexity and cost of the composite unit.
In this invention, we describe an approach for monolithic integration of such sensors at the wafer level, yielding a composite system that is compact, low cost and while maintaining high stability and accuracy. We propose to package a sensor suite monolithically, such that each sensor component is sealed within in its required environment (eg vacuum, nitrogen, under pressure etc), via a monolithic process. Furthermore, sensor alignment is completed lithographically, eliminating the need for post processing alignment.